Erik and Amanda Hansen, along with their children, were commissioned as Long-Term Missionaries from The Church at Brook Hills in 2010. Erik is a pediatric surgeon and serves at Kijabe Hospital near Nairobi. Amanda cares for their four children and helps serve alongside Erik with BethanyKids, an organization connected to the Kijabe Hospital to make the gospel known to those they are serving.

Below is an excerpt of one of their newsletters from this year. To read more about the adventures of the Hansen Family in Kenya, visit their blog uncommonroad.blogspot.com

 



Driving along the edge of the Rift Valley, the road lined with all sundry animals, kids, and shanty shops, Amanda commented, “sometime in the last few months this became normal.” We’re a long way from family and old friends, but Kenya certainly makes for a wonderful new home. Here in Kijabe, a rare hyena sighting precluded our kids’ walking home from school for a couple of days – a reasonable precaution in our amateur estimation. Our milk comes to the door warm (i.e. straight from the cow) every morning and we pasteurize it ourselves. For anyone who doesn’t know this, potty-training a two-year-old is the same regardless of which continent you’re on. And it’ll come as no surprise to anyone that there are real physical and spiritual needs all over the world.

The big kids are enjoying school and the little boys spend most days outside in the sandbox, flower garden, or on the swings – dirt has become a way of life for them. We love the freedom all the kids have here.

Erik’s learning many new things at work from new surgical procedures to new approaches to familiar problems. Kijabe hospital is a very high-functioning mission hospital but remains, nevertheless, a rural African hospital with limited resources compared to the average hospital in a more developed country. The real beauty of the hospital with its Kenyan and ex-patriate staff is it s commitment to ministering to the spiritual and physical needs of the people it serves. Erik works closely with pediatric surgical trainees and is intimately involved with BethanyKids, a non-profit organization started here in Kijabe that provides care to children with disabilities, congenital problems as well as offering care to refugees.

We’re so thankful for your prayers and support and know that we are nothing without Christ. We rely on being members of His Body as we participate in His Work together.

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